Risen 2 - patch #1 released

Some people wander more than others. Personally if I can't find someone/something I end up wandering about. Time is also taken up solving puzzles and generally faffing.

I'll likely end up playing for at least as long as JDR13.

Daniel.

Great to hear there's a big patch out already. I think I'll give it one more before buying.

DeepO said:

Updates the game to v1.0.

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What was the former version number?

Kostaz said:

What was the former version number?

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I think that was a joke about the unfinished state of the original version.

I haven't really started Risen 2 so this is good news for me!

A few things to say from me... About game length...
- In first run I needed 40 hours (at least on the last save prior to Mara it says 39 hours and now can't remember how many minutes IIRC 40). And I was pretty thorough, checking every single corner and retrying every NPC for a possible new dialogue (it wasn't crap, I received a brand new quest on Antigua that way). I'm now replaying the game but with muskets. And I'm telling you that I'll be faster now - not because I know where certain plants or chests are but because muskets kill mobs faster than swords (played first run on voodoo side).
- Treasure Isle DLC took me about an hour. And it's actually less. Why it took me an hour? Because I replayed it. See... Once you learn what bonus the legendary item (Almanach) gives, you'll rush the reward first then kill all mobs on the island (and also dig up fake chests as each digging brings more glory).
- I don't have Temple of Air DLC as it's not available on Steam. I've read on the official forum some spoilers about it and it doesn't look as "5 hours" long thing, so don't hold your breath.

About the patch...
- I was impressed how fast it got released. And it wasn't some hotfix, but a patch that solves many issues. In other games we'd wait months on a thing like this. Of course not every single thing got fixed, there are a few annoyances left (followers AI, 10/50$ shooting minigame exploit), but I won't be nitpicking - this patch was an awsome job.

About dodge/unfinished product/conspiracies...
- The presence of all 3 DLC in the game unlockable by cheats (except sound files) is something that opened up questions, suspicions, whatnot. We should probably speculate that perhaps the dodge WAS in the game already just had to be unlocked with a cheat, a cheat noone found prior to the patch. We can also say that perhaps the dodge was actually in the game all the time, but was removed for whatever reason and then returned with the patch just because fans wanted it. The game is playable and finishable without it, but if you carefully read those negative reviews they all whine because of no dodge. And although I didn't need dodge anywhere at all, PB/DS did a great job of shutting the mouth of those reviewers by the superquick patch. So now, when you read those reviews, you can only comment "WTF is he/she/them talking about?".

In mere of two weeks, the great game just became greater.

All the graphical and gameplay problems that players are now reporting were present and highlighted in previews of the game on web sites many months ago and even last year (not to mention they were also in the closed beta/demo that was released). So one would think that PB knew about these problems and were working on fixing them in the last few months - so in fact and in my view, this patch should be a day 1 patch and is therefore late as many players already finished the game. However, considering that PB have limited resources, then fixing known bugs should take them longer.

This delay, however, I think would cost them alot as Risen 2 metascore is low and that probably will impact on their coming console sales.

joxer said:

- I was impressed how fast it got released. And it wasn't some hotfix, but a patch that solves many issues. In other games we'd wait months on a thing like this.

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I agree. For example, *cough* Skyrim *hack*

While Skyrim has released 5 patches to date, they all are quite small and most of them do not deal with the huge number of broken quests. On top of that each one has introduced some other new problem.

So I too am quite surprised by the 'meatyness' of this very-quickly-released patch by PB and applaud their effort. This kind of effort goes a looooonggg way for my willingness to continue supporting them with my dollars.

I'm glad that I waited my purchase

It looks like that the most criticized aspect of combat (no dodge) got fixed. Good job pb.

I don't understand the justification of purchase
You preorder to show support, thats how I see it, not to jump into it as fast as possible. Especially a complex game. I wait for most games I really care about until they are patched nicely.

I've just noticed that the PB boss opened a thread at WoR to let everybody, and especially the guy who created it, know that the new patch is incompatible to the morph mod.
Classy move. Not many devs would have done something like that.

WoR is german forum, right?
And since I live in a small town I cannot learn the language - no courses here.
And it's not just Risen and PB, Drakensang is also from Germany, not to mention awsome adventure games that are made mostly in Germany and then I must wait years for translation.

Well, I won't complain.

WoR has English and Russian sections too.

Hey I won't complain either. What I cannot understand, some good soul will translate... Although usually Alrik brings us news from Germany…

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the cynical theory that this patch was completed, tested, and released just in time for the console release. Remember how the console release kept getting pushed out, but not the PC release? Maybe they figured we could all just deal...

Just in time for the console release in August?

Fantasm said:

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the cynical theory that this patch was completed, tested, and released just in time for the console release.

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The console release is in August so that cynical theory needs to be shelved . If you absolutely must believe in a cynical theory though then you can be pretty sure that they were in a hurry to get this patch out the door in order to fix the cheat that allowed everyone free access to the DLCs. Deep Silver definitely has a strong interest in selling the DLCs rather than giving them away for free so I'm quite sure they put the pedal to the metal behind the scenes.

One of the PB guys on WoR responding to a question about dodge said that such simple animation is easy to create. So maybe they really did address the criticized aspects.

Good on PB for a quick and meaty patch, and more importantly, making combat deeper by adding dodge. Still will wait on this until they fix the morphing vegetation.

BTW, Amazon hasn't gotten back to me about offering a US boxed version. I need to tweak them again.